Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 20140415

If you go to our facebook page, and informal whole will let you participate in the question were doing this morning. We will show you the results of that hole the morning. It can also tweet us your responses. If you want to email us your , you can do so at cspan. Org. Do you consider the amount of tax have to pay too high, about right, or too low. Are asking you the same thing about your taxes. Facebook is available to you as well, not only to leave your comments, but you can also participate in the poll. It is not scientific, just a responding poll. To those who have artie, though saying to high, 100 71 people. Those hearing about right are 76 people, and though saying their tax bill is too low, about 11 people so far. You can participate in that poll. You can tweet us your responses. You can also send this email. Send us email. Aaron fisher starts it off on twitter. From some of you this morning. William in cypress, texas says his taxes are too high. First of all, william, thanks for calling. Good morning. Caller taxes are just too high. I cant take it anymore. I would like to have a shout out. Host when you say taxes are too high, it is your tax bill for this year, or in general . They take money for a lot of things that they dont really need. I think we should start cutting the budget of the government is targeting the money back to the people. It seems all the might it take for taxes and up going to the people who are rich. Your taxk about burden. Where are you at . No specifics, just generally. Caller im actually retired. My taxes were so high. Other bills for my Daughters College but im still paying for. Host does william from cypress, texas. James is in manassas, virginia, also saying taxes are too high. Good morning. It seems like your tear it just gets worse and worse. Past year we this paid almost 30,000 in taxes and we still owe another 5000. We almost have to have additional moneys taken out just to break even. It seems really crazy. Host what are some of the factors lead up to 35,000 in taxes . Caller that is just payroll tax. My wife works in the Health Care Industry and i work in the driving industry. It is just high payroll tax. I know there are many ways to try to deter some of the high like, but it seems yeartoyear it just gets worse. Times talksshington about why your taxes are too high. They say this were asking you about your tax bill. Our First Respondent saying attacks are too low. Yes, i have a social conscience. Democrat,d liberal progressive minded. I am blessed to have had money in my family. Vote my pocketbook, as they say. I vote my conscience. I believe in social and economic justice. In a country where i can live beautiful chestnut hill, newton, brookline, massachusetts. There people 10 miles away under. Verpasses, homeless the government has a job, and that is the social safety net that lbj and bill clinton and barack obama have continued, and rightly so. I am willing to pay more. In my tax bracket, without giving specifics, there was once a time before the reagan tax cuts, i believe, because this is a little before my time, regarding the history, people in my bracket were paying far higher percentage. The poor getting poorer, the rich are getting richer, the taxes are for needed services for those less fortunate in our country very the last, and i am that a flat tax would be simply unfair. It would punish those who are. Lready destitute and poor you need an even more progressive tax code where i would be paying even more, like Warren Buffett says there is no reason why his secretary should him. Ying more taxes than that is my comment. From that is robert massachusetts who says taxes are too low. The rohrbach report on twitter says that americans are born free. Taxed to death. And itple of opinions comes to tax bill. Were asking this morning if it is too high, too low, are just about right. We turn next to alyssa in north olmsted, ohio. Go ahead, melissa. I have an interesting perspective on this. I grew up in poverty, a single mother with three children. I perpetuated the cycle. I lived in government programs. A government lawsuit myself through college and got myself a career. My son is 11. Fortunately we are on the other side of that. I have done very well. Im any good career position where i will probably be earning just below 100,000. Ive been situation where i needed the tax system to help me provide for my son, i never also been on the side of it where i have learned a very good living. Although my taxes are a lot higher now than they used to be, the same time i looked back and i think i am paying it forward, because somebody else helped me and this is what i need to give back and help other people. Fill yourhen you taxes each year, this is what you think of. What industry are you in . Im in the automotive industry. What aspect if you dont mind my asking . I work in sales. Industry. Ledominated i now have a 401 k that i can fund so i can have a good retirement. My kids have health insurance. We live in a Great Community with Excellent Schools and a good home. For the extra taxes i paid, had a not been able to put myself through school and make sure my son was in daycare was doing that, i would have never been in a position that i am now. Nobody wants to pay taxes, right . Everybody wants to keep the money they earn in their pockets. At the same time there are needs. There are people out there who are struggling. Those programs should be used. I feel like im a testament to that area because they did. I have been off any government assistance for years now and i have done well. Some of these tax dollars benefited me becoming independent so that i could go back and contribute to the system. Host the folks at gallup asked the question, do you regard income tax you have to pay is fair . 54 of those responding saying yes, it is. 41 saying no, it is not. Can make your thoughts known again for the remainder of our time this morning, again, on the phone lines. For those who say it is too low. If he said it is too ralph is up next from washington dc good morning. Engineer,en i was an i was paying 31 . Made 70,000, i paid nor Social Security taxes. At that was a mistake. What people dont know in this country is if you make a certain amount, you dont pay any more Social Security, medicaid and medicare taxes. The little guy does, but the big guy doesnt. And became an investor and made seven figures one year, i was paying 16 in federal taxes. Wealthy guy. Er i get a kick out of it when people say the bottom people are takers. Listen, once again money, the takers are the top one percent and the top five percent in to takers on at the bottom percent, theyre paying Social Security, medicaid, medicare, sales tax, car fees, Everything Else. They are being screwed. It is a guy who makes a top half of one percent said he is paying less than 15 taxes and he is pointing the blame it all the little guys. It is crazy. Host we have conversations here on capitol hill about changing the tax code word with your philosophy in mind, what you think about those efforts . What would you say to those thinking about it here in capitol hill . First of all i agree with the previous caller. A flat tax is idiotic. It sounds simple, but it is going to screw the little guy. The best thing we could do is raise Capital Gains tax 23 years, instead of a gambling tax. Number two, they should have no limit on Social Security. This of cutting it off at a hundred thousand dollars, if you make a Million Dollars, you get of 2by percentage million. That would solve budget issues on medicaid and medicare. We wouldnt have a budget crisis right now. If you look at the National Geographic report, they had some great charts it came out of omb. What you are seeing in the last 30 years is the amount of payroll taxes increasing dramatically. The amount of Corporate Taxes is fallen to the floor. The amount of other taxes, which havesickly federal taxes fallen through the floor even though we are getting more wealthy. That is raw from washington dc. The Heritage Foundation says this about tax a. Day. This is bob gibbs, by the way. Here read his treat as well. Karen buchanan, a viewer is wearing and saying posted last night on facebook, you can see most of the respondents this morning saying that when it comes to their tax will, to hide. Some say just about right and fewer than that, significantly fewer saying it is too low. If you visit our facebook page, not only can you leave a comment, but if you want to participate, you can do so, as well. Facebook. Com cspan. Mark from philadelphia says his taxes are too high. Lets put this in perspective, pedro. We just paid our property taxes. Between federal taxes, payroll and income, state income taxes, city wage taxes. Flat, so if you make a hundred grand, it is foreground of the top. And property taxes. Our net effect of tax rate for my wife and me is 50 . You have to consider all taxes here. You family start off with . 50 on the dollar is kind of ridiculous. My thing is anyone at the 100,000 toel under just pay regular taxes. People like bloomberg and bill gates and those guys, there rate to be 90 . As far as corporations go, i dont have to make the money in ireland, timbuktu, wherever, tax arrest of those guys as if they made the money here. There are folks at Oconnor Davies thats a post state income tax rates across the nation. How i some of them. Again, Oconnor Davies put this information together. It highlights some of the taxes that are paid statewide, as are your mentioned. He sang his estimated tax rate is 50 , when you combine this can of factors, may be effective as enter textiles as well, but you can do federal, state, local. If you think it is too low or too high, give us your opinion. Low is what sean thinks. He is in west virginia. Hike, sean. What you think it is too low . Caller i think it is too low for the small man and the wealthy people like bill gates. The future caller say it is not even a flat tax is not going to be fair to the small man. I would just like to say this to you republicans, middleclass and poor. If paul ryans budget passes, if now, you youre poor better pay tension to a politicians are doing. You may be one of those people who has not taken care of tax issues. Jeffrey of from saying if you or even a small amount of aris, it is a different matter when it comes to today. Their heavy penalties for not finding for not filing. Theres a five percent charge for the payment you fail to deliver on time. That is cap the maximum penalty of 25 . From warren, ohio, this is david, who thinks when it comes taxes is just about right for. Right i only say about given the current system. People have to realize, government cost money. My clean water and transportation and law enforcement, you on all the things and you have to pay for it. Why should organizations like nascar get a special tax break . Adjusted tax rate for corporate entities, is that what youre saying . Of course. These lapel pin patriots make me sick. They dont want to support a government, but yet theyre patriots and yet we have worked veterans and need help. Where was the courage and the political will in that case . E could have cut the deficit the will is not there. It makes me sick. No wonder tom coburn is taking a bag and leaving. Andrew, good morning from alexandria virginia. Also, when it comes taxes, it is about right. Things considered, the taxes are about right. I would like to see a flat tax. I think that would be a good thing. I would like to see Corporate Tax abolished. I would like to see a flat tax on all income, whether it be ordinary earned income and Capital Gains. I would like to see the savings not be taxed. I think that would be more fair. He would have double taxation. Everyone would be paying a fair percentage of all their income, no matter where it came from. I think that would be a good thing. I think one of our viewers says when it comes to that, the lower income would be affected more than the other brackets. You think that would be true . Caller if someone makes 10,000 a year, lets say the flat texas 10 . I think it would be fair. To bewhat led you convinced that that type of texas elizabeth system . I think all income, Capital Gains and ordinary wages, earned income, should be taxed at that same rate. That would cover all the needs of the government. I think when Capital Gains are taxed at a different rate, that is when you have in equity. Saying,m from twitter how about no income taxes for two stories 50,000 . Taking a look at republican efforts. This is the washington theres another story in usa today if you go to this headline. Cornelius, good morning from virginia. His taxes are too high. Good morning. Gone. K he is lets go to bill from reading, pennsylvania. Caller listen, i just came from europe. Are very talks about the rich, the rich, the rich. Ok . I get 12,000 a year from Social Security. High, if itre so wasnt for the rich, the poor want to be poor. It or want to work, they let government take care of them. They want government to pay their bills. Give them a card, give them food stamps. That is where we are going wrong. If it but the flat tax for all americans, we would have a Better Society and a healthy one. You can pay, even tax. If a guy makes 200,000 and pay 17 , he will pay that. Is 12,000, he will pay that. The whole idea is the American People dont understand that the europeans are starving right now because all the rich people left their and they left them stuck because they aint got no jobs. Dont criticize the rich. The government is the problem. Not the rich. Says taxes are too high. She is from Washington State. Good morning. Thank you, im sorry. Thank you for taking my call. Host go ahead and say what you have to say. If you listen to the tv therell be a short delay. I do thinkaller taxes are too high. For variety of reasons there too high. Ive been listening to most of the listeners us morning and i agree and disagree with a lot that they have to say. The code iss that very complex. It has advantages and disadvantages for lots of people. The man from massachusetts it says he is a proud liberal crack and he has a social conscience, he doesnt have a corner on that. I dont think there is an American Life it doesnt have a social conscience, whether you are a libertarian or a democrat. You take some people and you dont know where it is, you cant account for it, you are , by talking about the gop the way, im not a republican, know theonstant do you drum about how horrible people are in that it takes a much and that they dont give back heard a lot of wealthy americans to give a lot of money. If you want to talk about the corporations that are making people, that are providing jobs so people can have a social safety net, theres a whole testspectrum just to people to death in c the fraud and waste going on every single day, coming of congress, it is just unbelievable. Maybe, if we would all take a look at it and say, we need to do better. It is matter what side theyre on, we need to pull back. The best we can with the money we have and then take it from there. But just to say that one group is horrible and that they need to pay more taxes so people can have more, is just a very ignorant statement. Thank you. A lot of papers dedicated stores today. Take a look at the boston bombings a year ago. This is New York Times. The headline says that Court Documents a snippet of a phone conversation the Vice President joe biden will be attending attribute for those affected by the tragic events of what occurred on april 15 at 13. That would take place in boston. There will be traveling today to participate in that. Tim from schaumburg, illinois says taxes are too high. Good morning. I wanted to make two comments on that. Not speaking in terms of something income tax rate than at him income, part of my oldest son starting college, our families number one expense over the course of the year was your federalve income tax, your federal payroll taxes, you have your state taxes and your real estate tax. You have your sales tax and a gasoline tax and all those other taxes that people pay their not even aware of the fact that theyre they are paying. Overall, collectively, i dont think that taxes should be the largest component of my familys annual budget. The crib lay had was with your selection of categories. I dont mind paying the taxes that i do pay, but what frustrates me more than anything is the complexity and amount of time that i have to spend guring out how much money i owe. Host how long does it take you . I sit it on my own, now every year i spent hundred bucks to buy tax software. The time ive collected all the paperwork and gone through everything, i would say for our a full daysast efforts. Theres a 10 hour day. Unfortunately, using tax software, we are able to import a lot of things electronically, things are used to have to do manic manually. Ill know how many people are willing to go out and buy the software. I assume everyone has a computer. The software isnt cheap. It is still a significant amount of time. Your taxpayerhad advocate on his show a couple years ago. That person was saying that americans spend its billion hours. Seg thank you for the an 6 billion hours for estimate the taxpayers and businesses in the amount they spend as far as years to comply with that, the tax code being about 4 Million Words long and 4700 changes to the code since 2001. Ohiois up next, lakewood lakewood, ohio. Good morning. This is just another fraud that the right wing is put on us. Kaman, you guys. Who on the right side of america is paying the full percentage of taxes that are owed . Nobody is. Is like the International Taxes that people bring back to this country. We are lost in this country when it comes to paying your fair share. Ecome wealthy individuals and yet they leave the rest behind . All you have to do is look at the minimum wage. We have lost the integrity and values in this country, the principles of we were founded on. I reject any idea that the right else fox news, or anybody the talks that malarkey, is looking out for the best interests of the masses. Not just a select few. We are turning into a governmental oligarchy. Were going to continue to grow that way because technology has taken us in such a state, that ae average person i heard guy say everybody has a computer. What world are living in when you say everybody has a computer. It does not work that way. Unity, founded upon christian principles, and when , thatny your brother food says something about our country. And then we wonder why nobody respects us in the world. We are the laughing stocks of the world right now with the type of actions that we are taking. Kaman, man. We have millions of people in prison in this country because he smoked marijuana. We have some guy out there that owes us a Million Dollars in back fees for using government land, which is our land. We let a group of thugs host the bunting or market the caller made, senator harry reid commented on it as well on the front page of the washington times. Frank, good morning from jacksonville, florida. She says taxes are about right. Ry it caller caller yes. It is hard to see people who have used Government Systems and don what the government was went to do. I havent been in that situation, but i do empathize with that. I am retired now, but when i was working, i worked inattentive republicans and they always complain about their taxes. And that i was always saying i dont mind paying taxes for my money to be used for the good of everybody. That is what our government is supposed to be about, of the and forby the people, the people. The republicans are trying to turn people against the government. The people should make the government work that it the way that it should. They should not be trying to turn people against the government. Host that is fran. For the final few minutes of this segment, you may be joining us late, but were are asking you about your tax bill. You have heard people participate this morning throughout the morning, giving her thoughts on the matter. Again, facebook age has a poll that you can participate in. You can make your thoughts on to, you and if you want can email us. Nikki from florence, alabama. Good morning, how are you . I was kind of figure out when exactly is the extended unemployment bill going to reset house of representatives ec . Host it passed the senate. The house pretty much has it in its court. Robbie from red oak, iowa. High there. I tor i think the people know why there is an income tax and how it came to be, and who instigated it. There was no income tax before 1913, except during the civil war. That was declared unconstitutional. In 1895 it had to be rinse it to did it had to be reinstituted. Fed, which is nothing but international bankers, was able to have it passed. There is not way to loan the government money. Instigated so was there would be a way to pay back the Federal Reserve, which they got past. The income tax didnt soak the rich, it soaked the middle class because it was a graduated tax. It tended to prevent anyone from rising into insolence. By the time the income tax was instituted and made into law, the wealthy had hidden their money in foundations like the rockefeller and carnegie foundations. 1913, wasn the year an ominous one. There now existed the means to loan the government colossal sums of money through the Federal Reserve. The means to exact the payments as well. Host is an impressive history, how did you come to learn all of this . Reading history, reading history. Is it taxes are too high. What is at say by your current state of taxes . Are there lessons to be learned . Back ande need to go how taxes came to be in the first place. Money isway to borrow to have war. I think if you cant figure it out, you better go back and start reading history. Host that is robbie gives us a little bit of history. The folks at forbes give us another little bit of history as well. The Supreme Court declared a flat tax contained in a victory for taxpayers from rock hill, illinois. She says her taxes are too high. The lady from iowa who was speaking earlier was exactly right. That is how the impending income tax can about. I believe also that in the bible, it talks about how the is a place in bible that says give to all right, back then there was this tax thing going on. Him, which was a roman empire, what is due to him. So, i think it is based mostly on the poor, the backs of the poor. Walter, culbertson, North Carolina. He says taxes are too high. Caller yes sir. 10 . The first 10,000 of income would be null and void heard you wouldnt have to pay taxes on that. 10 on Everything Else. Keep the mortgage interest eduction a 50 . Charitable deductions a 50 hit Everything Else at 10 . Income, a ceiling on maybe a Million Dollars or Something Like that. Maybe retract 25 , but just keep it simple. 0 host . Host why do you think 10 would work . Caller i have a neighbor who than 35,000 and he made 5,000. That would be more money in the economy to buy things. Buy cars, tvs, computers. Just keep a simple 10 . ,he first 10,000 being exempt and keep it like that. I do believe it would put more money in the economy. The government would collect more money overall. He wouldnt have all these various deductions and everything. One more call. This is from mike who says when it comes to taxes and his tax bill, he says things are just about right. Mike, tell us why. I think the tax rate is about fair for myself third i think you get what you pay for most of the time. For those who want small government and small taxes, i have one piece of advice for those people move to a small country. Right now we live in a country with a big smelter and the planet. Bigger than the next 13 countries. T is like saying i will was a 300 pound land record doing on a peewee Football Team . You cant have it both ways. As far as these people on the far right i love my parents, my mother and father, my father cheap,hilosophy of cheap, cheap. Under and shese did not go up during the depression. My mom looked for the best bargain. That is why she did the shopping. My dad always look for the cheapest price. Host mike, can i ask you a personal question . Caller yes. Host how do you make out . I am a substitute teacher once or twice a week. Many of you are talking about your tax bill, whether it is too high, too low, or just right. To rachelg to listen from politico. Remember when tax reform was a big talk third will see what the future holds. Later on we would talk what the taxation system in the United States and if it is fair. That will take place at about 8 30. To give you a little sense of how history has treated the tax system, and specifically the irs, the folks at American History tv highlighted a documentary about the Treasury Department who collects taxes. It was a little bit of a documentary about the Treasury Department that was produced by the Treasury Department. To give a sense of that, we will pick up those conversations when we return. Week, American History tvs real america brings you archival films that help to tell the story of the 20th century. Electing each year collecting each or 100 billion dollars or more in taxes, the Internal Revenue service probably has continuing contact with more citizens of the United States than any other agency of the federal government. Employeeshan 60,000 staff and National Headquarters office, seven regional offices, several service centers, nearly 60 district offices, at 900 local offices. In addition, it has come in recent years, extended its overseas operations to provide service and to permit tax collection among the thousands of american citizens living and working abroad. Taxes has far more phases of activity than the average taxpayer realizes. , Internal Revenue maintains basic collection and audit divisions is handle the bulk of its activity. It also has an active Intelligence Division concerned with citizens who fail to file, profile fraudulent returns, and who need a further check be on the more normal routines. On the other hand, the Appellate Division concerns of the matters in which Internal Revenue and taxpayers are in serious, but more legitimate disagreement. Washington journal continues. Host joining us now from politico is rachel bade. Thank you for joining us. What is theday, consensus of congress when it comes to changing the tax code . Weve heard about tax reform a lot for the past couple of years. If you go to any member on the hill and say do you want tax reform . Is when you get to those Little Details that when people say tax reform, their ideas are very different. Your president obama and the democrats in the senate want to do tax reform that raises taxes by total of 1 trillion, things the can use to say, paid on deficit or increase spending for transportation. If you talk to republicans, theyre talking about revenue neutral tax reform. What that means is tax reform that will not increase taxes. It will get rid of a whole bunch of tax breaks and use a pot of money to lower the rates. People are on two totally different pages when we talk about tax reform. Of taxow, the prospect reform is not looking good because there is nobody moving to the center on this. Host is that because it is an Election Year . Is, mostly. Obviously, their ideological reasons why democrats want to increase taxes. We have seen taxes happen before. We have proved to show you how hard it is. It has been 25 years since we have seen Something Like this. Is very hard to do. It takes compromise by both democrats and republicans. It is totally possible, but in an Election Year like this year in which republicans are hoping to gain seats in the house but also take over the senate, Senate Democrats are fighting tooth and nail against losing that. Were not going to see much of the way of real overhaul coming out in the next two months. Host so we had representative dave camp come in and talk about this issue. He came up with a plan to do something about it. Where did it go . He is one of the biggest cheerleaders of tax reform, dave camp. He released probably the most extensive tax reform draft we have seen in the past few decades. Remember mitt romney in the president ial campaign talked about lowering the rates, but everyone was like, how are you going to lower the rates. Which loopholes are going to close. Dave camp is a first member came out and said this is what were going to do. Basically, he said he wants to find a code so that there are two brackets, 10 and 25 rate right now we have about seven seven. About you can dance those into two brackets, but then at a third bracket for the wealthy americans who make more than 400,000 years of they are paying about 35 . He also gives her some popular things like, for instance, people live in states where they pay really high local and state taxes, they wont be able to write that off from the federal taxes. That is a big break right there. Another thing is the mortgage interest deduction. People have limits on how a chicken take off. He would also lower the to 25 . E rate from 35 by getting rid of a whole bunch of business taxes, which is making the Business Community squirm right now. Heres a little bit about dave camp talking about his proposal became utterly this year. Toobviously, is draft is have a code that really is progrowth we do that by lowering rates, increasing standard deduction. That gets of the complexity of the tax code. He talked americans, that is the other thing they want. Code is incredibly complicated. That is pretty wet like it over the economic recovery. That is another reason why we want to the job krishan we want to see. The free test a real object there is that if 95 of the people do not itemize, which i dont under the tax plan, they will be filing a simpler 1040. They will have less opportunity for the irs to meddle in their affairs, because it will be much more straightforward. There wont be as much discretion in terms of the irs. I will tell you, theres nothing more frightening than having a letter in the mail when you get home. Theres always come friday night from the irs. From the things he said, he talked about this going from a complex system. Will that there are not a few you closest lance into place . I think both republicans and democrats agree that reform will boost the economy. Is just a matter of how to do it. One thing i didnt see him talking about here but that raise a lot of headlines when he introduced it was a tax on wall street, which, as a republican opposing a tax on banks was like a shocker to us reporters. Nobody expected that. One of my colleagues wrote, for instance, when this came out, calling this a sea change for the republican party. It was like calling the grand canyon a small ditch. To see republican propose a tax cut on wall street, that was mindboggling. That was when a whole bunch of republicans stopped backing him. A lot of republicans said oh, you know our colleague is good to come out with his great proposal and we are excited. When i came out, a lot of people were just taken aback that. A lot of republicans backtracked and said well, this is just a draft. Up overhould get worked this. The Banking Community to get worked up over it. They threatened to stop giving campaign funds. As you probably know, the thencial industry is one of gops biggest contributors for campaigns. They said were going to turn off the spigot if you are considering Something Like this. That was one of the biggest reactions we heard with the small bank tax that blew up the headlines. When paul ryan releases his to the inc. Was devoted tax plan of David Campbell . Just a little bit. Paul ryan hasnt been a big supporter of cap in the past. What he originally wanted to earlier, paultax ryan approach leadership to allow him to introduce that draft when leadership told him no. Early on, he was a supporter. His plan came out, a bunch of us approached the budget chairman paul ryan to ask about his thoughts on this. You pretty much right away from it areas he did want to comment on anything. He said it is just a draft. And then, when his budget cannot a couple of weeks ago, you inc. That after all the years of work that had gone into the draft that it would have a big introduction in the budget. We want to pass this tax reform draft. It wasnt. It was a couple of lines. It mentioned it alongside two other taxa from drafts that have gotten zero attention in the taxa from community. Their red meat proposal to abolish income tax 100 and place a 20 sales tax on everything that you would buy pretty much nationwide. The other one was to do a flat tax. Ringing that back to trains 12 or 13 where everybody pays the same amount of tax matter how much money they make. You can ask her questions on one of three lines is morning. Submit your questions via twitter at cspan wj. , two. Send this email what should we lets assume nothing happens is your. What is next, then. What happens . Will hearhink we something about camps pozo. There are about 50 or so provisions of temporary tax breaks. For instance, to break your different commuting. Commuter transit benefits, breaks for school teachers, breaks for oil companies, a break for research and development for companies. A lot of Different Things for renewable energy. Electric cars. These are things that are temporarily extended from one year or two years in a row, so theyre not actually added into the cost of the tax cost over the tenure window. It is like a way for lawmakers to have a tax break but not really pay for it. It is a very backs it is very bad tax policy if you asked me. Senate is going to pretty much extend the tax extenders as it normally would, for a year or two. In the house, did cap, since he is going to be losing his chairmanship at the end of the year, he wants to dig into these extenders, get rid of all bunch of them, and then make son of them, just a few of them permanent in the tax code very at we will be hearing a lot of talk about that over the next two weeks. Rst called our first caller is dan. We need to simplify it. It is hours and hours of productivity from companies that are wasted trying to figure out the tax law. Let me say something. If you are a working class , what the democrats want to do is take this pretax benefits that you get from your company, for example, in health add 7,000 tol income and tax you on that. Money that you didnt even make benefits what you may or may not use, and they want to tax you on money that you havent even made yet. I think we really need to watch our pocketbook. If youre working class person, you better think twice about voting democrat this time. You take away from that, rachel . Guest i would like to see a study in that. Democrats come as for workingclass. I guess that is how you define workingclass. When we talk about the democratic proposal for tax reform, most of the increases, pretty much all of them would be on people making 250,000 or more. Hes likely talking about Health Care Benefits from work, which are currently not taxed. Your 401 k plan, any savings would put in a roth ira, these things that are normally not taxed. Yes, the democrats want to taxa things, but only if you make over a certain threshold. If youre making 300,000 a year, under the obama proposal you would see a reduction in things you could actually keep from being taxed. That is true. As for whether it the workingclass, i guess it depends on how you classify workingclass. Host takes about 6 billion yearly for taxpayers and businesses who comply with the tax code. Another analogy we hear all the time is that the tax code is longer than the bible. Workfinitely needs some there the question is when they will do it and who is willing to compromise. Host when you talk about eliminating deductions and changing things. Of group ine kind the United States that will protest that. You will hear a whole bunch of outrage from the group. Right now, were hearing a lot from Small Businesses because have ansinesses interesting tax situation where they are not taxed at the corporate rate. They use the individual rate to pay business taxes. That is 90 of all the senses in the united dates, Small Businesses. To see a taxgoing cut at all under the obama plan. They are not happy about either of those. Independent line, dave. Lets good morning. Tax religious organizations. How much money would that bring in . Thank you. Organizations,s i do not see that coming for a the long time, any time in foreseeable future. There is a big debate going on oritol hill about whether not to allow social welfare organizations 501 c or to in political activities. These groups can spend up to 49 resources supporting a candidate, etc. Used forhas to be social welfare educational purposes. Applying for these statuses, the question is, should these groups engaging in political activity the receiving a tax break . That is the thing we will hear a lot about for the next few months. The irs has proposed legends legislation that will limit the scope of political activity these groups can engage in, which will kick some of them off roles completely. As for how much money can be sure off the top of my head. There are charities and social welfare groups that are tax exempt right now. Your other question was about jobs. Tax reform, everyone agrees, would create jobs. Economicgrow the environment. As for cpas and people who prepare taxes, that is a good question that i would like to ask myself here at cbas, their job, the reason they have a job, is to help people get through this complicated code. If you simplify the code, there would still be a need for people to help you dig through those things, especially for businesses and people who have complicated tax provisions they have to work with. Host special interest was highlighted by a ranking member. He talked about it in light of the republican budget postal but talk about special interests and their tax issues. Heres what he had to say. At the budget, they do two things. They set an artificial political target of a balance in 10 years. I will talk about that in a second. They claim balance but it is ace a fake allens. Having said that target, they they will not ask anybody except the middle class and lower income americans to pay the price hitting that target your they say it is important to reduce the deficit and we agree, but they refuse to break. Single tax not one. Not for hedge fund managers, not for a coil companies. We continue to ask the question, if hitting a particular target or a particular day is so important, why will you ask powerful special interests to make a contribution . They asked nothing of the very powerful and wealthy. Guest a whole bunch of business coalitions are effective on capitol hill right now. In november, he originally wanted to release his plan. We saw the house leadership, Speaker Boehner and eric cantor, say no, youre not allowed to read release your plan. Intowere working in a way talking, saying, not ready, we do not like the provision yet. The Business Roundtable has been public about the support forecast reform publicly. House leadership has told me what the companies within the coalition have been approaching leadership and they, we are not ready for them to release this. The Business Community and republicans have traditionally been very close. They have been keeping communication open and they are a reason taxes delayed. Host this is jim. Is relatedquestion to special interest and the correlation. The wars we have been and with the and afghanistan and problems. Thew a congresswoman on floor weeks ago speaking about how we pay 85 for a 2. 12 plastic elbow. 290 for a 35 wool. It seems to me the reason we are paying such high taxes is because we are paying for this stuff. The same companies go cover up all this stuff and take tax for our wages and whatever else they might take tax reductions for. They are not contributing on so many levels. A lot of taxes coming from individuals, some from payroll. Talk about Corporate Income taxes. , what thisorporate taxes look like for them . Guest the Corporate Tax rate is 35 but the reality is a lot of corporations do not pay that rate. They pay a lower rate. A lot of corporations have stores overseas eerie when you have them overseas, if youre youing products over there, are deferred from paying taxes. A lot of these companies are keeping their sales overseas so they can push the tax bill off indefinitely. There are 2 trillion of american corporate profits untaxed sitting overseas. That is the way we have developed our system. Some companies have attacked things immediately. Most companies most countries do not do that. If youre earning profits overseas, that stuff is not taxed. Prefer to moveld the system. If you are a Company Selling your product overs these, it would not be taxed that all here at home. That is what they would prefer. Quest to your point, when it comes to the Corporate Tax structure, saying, the Companies Pay an average tax rate of 12. 6 . Quest much lower than the 35 sent you a traditionally hear about. Bob, up next. Caller good morning. I greatly support the sales tax, a flexed flat tax. The current system, the rewardians use it to friends and punish enemies. Another big issue is never talked about. There are millions in this country working under the table illegally and they are from the taxempt system. I pay taxes because i work at a legitimate job. The guy across the street is busy selling drugs. Welluld be paying taxes as if we had a sales tax. More than i am paying currently. Maybe or maybe not. Even if there were a retail thesetax imposed on products, if it is a black market product, it will probably be under the table regardless. But that brings me to something besides tax reform. We have seen a lot of debate out of colorado and washington. You mentioned the black market, where they have legalized marijuana and seen a whole bunch of marijuana in Washington State now these things are illegal in the states. The revenues have been more than they thought they would be. I would be cautious in terms of looking at this money and saying, maybe if we legalize marijuana we would have a whole bunch of tax revenue. The reason why these are so highest because you likely have around bunch of people the country going to the states. That is why we are likely seeing the revenue. As you legalize around the the revenue will probably not be as much as we are seeing right now in colorado and Washington State. Classic is brought up a lot. One of the big what are the basic elements . Guest eliminating the income tax and imposing a tax on things like anything you buy in a grocery store, any sorts of sales. Is that conservatives, this is an idea brought to light by a famous as could famous conservative economists who said, it is the most harmful tax for the economy. Ands rid of the income tax then tax things like things we purchased. The idea behind that, they say it is fair because if you are a millionaire, you are making a lot of money but also probably spending a lot of my ear it if you buy a mercedes benz, you will pay more tax than a traditional family who will buy a honda or toyota or ford. That is the argument behind it. Liberal groups saying, if you do Something Like this, you will have people making billions of dollars and who are not getting tax on income and just saving it. And they will not be taxed at all. It is seen as a regressive in terms of the wealthier not pay nearly as much as the poor or the middle class would pay. Quest series roger in ohio, independent line. Same comment as far as the sales tax. Should it and why does it not get listened to and debated . It really does not. You are right. There are proposals to have the fair tax on capitol hill and it was not in the republican budget but nobody is talking about it. The reality is it is very far from happening. Onlyould have to have not gop controlled congress and white house but it would have to be a very conservative Republican House and republican white house. A lot of republicans who put out proposal and look at all the different productions code, youles in the look at that and say it is not a good idea. Host even though you talk about reductions like mortgage interest, with the middleclass rise up against that as well . Guest yes. It depends on how far it is cut. It has been said the first , you000 of the mortgage could write it off and that is fine. People with a large mortgage, people who live in very expensive areas like here in washington dc or people who have very expensive houses. Goes, say threshold youent to 25, 200 50,000, would have a lot more people outraged over that, especially because the government has tried to encourage families to buy houses to own in their home. Host independent line up next. Hello. My name is tammy. I am interested in anybody who knows any thing about, you are doing graduated tax on income tax. I am a waitress and i currently pay 12 tax on all the food i sell. But my patience, my customers, are not aware of that. Tipping in my state is not mandatory. Average when is an you consider you lose money. Half the time, you didnt you do not get the money in your hand before you get out the door. Theyre assuming you make 12 . I never signed anything for that. That will be crazy. Muchnot afford to pay that on a graduated tax as it goes across the plan. For toilet paper. I am already paying ridiculous prices for milk already based on my income. How can i afford to pay the same amount on milk as someone who makes 250,000 . Under a flat tax system we were talking about, assuming that was what you are referring to, the tax would be applied the same for everyone. It would be more costly for you as a waitress and someone who is a ceo for a business and went out and bought a gallon of milk. As for your situation where you say your income was taxed more than your debt, there is a way to a taxalks talk preparer, there is a way to write it down in your taxes so youd would be paying just under kids and not more than your kids. Host maryland, democrat line. Caller good morning. Spenders tax and spenders are not paid for. Why is it that extended Unemployment Benefits should be paid for . You mentioned republicans do not want to have Companies Pay taxes on overseas profits. All of this does not make sense. That wallou mentioned street cannot id a and wall street and how the republicans were all upset about that. Few days ago, a caller said democrats were in the pockets of wall street. Now we know it is the republicans. Good point about Unemployment Insurance not being paid for. Exactly correct. Tax extenders every year, they will cost about 50 billion to 100 billion and the on how many you extend. Right now this year, the Senate Proposal would cost 85 billion. Since they are just extended for one or two years, they are not fully paid for were included in the 10 year budget window. Any tax expert would tell you it is bad policy not only because the public does not know what they can rely on when they make future budget plans, but also, they are not pay for just in general. It is very similar to unemployment. They have been extended for the past few years. Lawmakers do this pretty much without batting an eyelash. They just extend them. It is a good point that you raised comparing the two. We are hearing House Republicans now say they do not want to stem them, just a few of them and get rid of the rest. We are starting to hear a little changed of rhetoric but for the past few decades, youre right. Profits, theas argument for that, republicans say if you do not tax corporations on overseas profits, they will feel more freedom in terms of bringing profits home if they want to. There is a hold pot of money sitting around the United States and different countries, made by american countries. There is a disincentive for bringing it back home and basically, once it comes back home, it will have a 35 tax slapped on it automatically. A lot of companies are keeping the money out there and they do not want to bring it home and there is an argument if you get rid of the 35 tax to bring you then, companies will bring it home and bring more jobs here and then grow the u. S. Economy. We talked about this a little bit, but this chart shows us the brackets that currently exists. Talk about the math involved to consolidate some of these proposals. What has to be done . Guest getting rid of a lot of tax breaks. Under the camp land, he goes into several hundred pages of breaks he will get rid of. Saw a fewy, the way i studies on this, the top post ,ould be making over 100,000 400 to 1 million and above. A lot of those folks are rarely going to see any sort of tax break. It would stay the same or maybe have a slight increase their it the biggest change would be those between 10,000 and 20,000. They would see their taxes cut and cut in half. The secondbiggest benefit would we those making between 40,000 and 50,000 or they would see a tax cut. He estimates the middleclass and poor americans, low income americans, would have an extra 1200 in their pocket. Under that plan, it would bottom of thewer tax bracket, while getting rid of reductions for wealthier americans. John joining us from springs. On our republican line. Go ahead. Caller a couple of things. The gentleman who called earlier talking about the jug at it, you said not necessarily, what he was talking about is the fact for a loafhad to pay of bread, it is the same price as a guy using drugs. Two, what the American People need to stop doing is get away from the premise that we are supposed to take debt pay taxes. To pay taxes. This is a law that could be changed. Insane to tax success. Anybody who has a job should not be held to the account of it into income tax. We need to stop with a republican democrat wing and Start Talking about americans. Your comment that it is insane to tax success and we do not have to pay taxes, i think even conservatives would disagree with you on that. A workingt to have United States of america and businesses moving from one side of the country to side of the another country, research and development, education, there will have to be taxes to pay for that. I do not think you would are many republicans on the hill say there needs to be no taxes, lets get rid of the irs. We do that sometimes, but most republicans and democrats would agree taxes need to exist in some form if you want to have a country that runs well and request when it comes to reform efforts, how is Investment Income treated, generally . A good question. Investment income is right now taxed at a lower rate than traditional income. Wealthy american and get 75 of income from Capital Gains or investing in the stock market, you now pay a if or a lower rate than you are working a 9to5 job. Obama would like to attack to rate and at a lower not distinguish between the two. The lower investment taxes benefit mostly the wealthy because it is the wealthy who normally have a bigger amount of honey invested in these sorts of things. They would pretty much keep Capital Gains and dividends the same, lowering it slightly. He would tax certain types of investments in businesses actually as ordinary income. He distinguishes by the type of investment, whether dividends or socks or Capital Gains or anything else. His is depending on what kind of investment. Covers policy issues. From thank you for waiting philadelphia, democrats line. You are on. Caller i would like to know what she thinks of the single tax assets means, and not income, which pretty , what we kind of had host are you there . Guest i got the gist of the question. I do not think that has any beat here on capitol hill. It is not something we talk about. Start taxing assets, you will disincentive eyes investing in things like your home, your car, anything else you might put money towards to protect yourself in the future or even grow your assets in the future. In terms of taxing assets, i think that would be something we do not hear much about right now. That picking up in terms of having a proposal to tax americans on net worth, house, etc. Host danny from louisiana, independent line. Caller here we are again. We have been here before back in the 1920s and 1930s. Democrats changed things and are allowed to because the company the country was going anticapitalists. We went along just fine for a while. Anyway, when we changed the supply side economics and the tax burden gave 600 50 billion a year to corporations in tax , we have been going down a hole ever since. We will never change this until we get rid of supplyside economics. Yes, you mentioned taxes were drastically decreased through the early part of the 20th century, the mid part of the 20th century, all the way up to reagan. We saw at one point here in the United States, imagine this, tax breaks on americans. That sound like something we would never go to now, but that is where the united dates was several decades ago. Itlowering the tax to what is today, 75 for the most wealthy americans, has grown the United States economy. I think about where the United States has gone in the last century. In asked for whether this was supplyside economics or a balance between lowering taxes and making sure the wealthy pay more, you could find studies that say both things. It is really hard to gauge who specifically is the reason for the United States growing its economy. The latter half of the 20th century 21st century. Breaks, reagan did a little bit of both. The 1986 tax cuts, the famous one we all talk about onay, he lowered taxes individuals and was very proud he took for americans entirely off taxes completely so they would pay zero tax. He was very proud. The way he paid for that was in part by increasing taxes on corporations. He did a little bit of both. Is he did play favorites for some and lower rates for businesses, but in 1986, he increased the tax breaks on corporations to pay host politico, he managed to do it in 1986. Could we do it now . Guest reagan was behind us all the way. There was an idea to do tax reform without increasing any rates without increasing taxes overall. Keeping it ready much revenue neutral throughout the whole thing. President obama had does not want to do that. He has shown no interest in that. He wants to raise taxes by about one train dollars overall. The difference is that residential Leadership Back then, it was all the way on board for resident for tax reform. President obamas not a visioning that. He wants to raise taxes overall. With that, there is a huge divide not bringing people together. Class other than expressing desires to change things, how has the president then maintaining that leadership on this topic . Guest he will say he is for tax reform but he means just a certain type. He wants to lower the taxes on corporations from 35 to 28 . Rule,ts to do the buffett basically add another surtax on the wealthy, people who make more than 100,000. We have for that for a long time. That is the sort of tax reform he envisions, a lot different than what republicans want to do , where they want to do not just the business side of tax reform but tax reform for everyone, whether youre making 10,000 a year or 10 million a year. Our last call, just in from ohio, republican line. C mike you are very nice and educated and smart people. Do you find working in d. C. , it is got to be disgusting. I do not know how you do it. Specialse people interest nonsense. Host as far as going forward, as far as changing taxes overall . You indicated you probably will not hear anything this year. When is the next possible chance of making changes . Guest in terms of tax reform, there are people who are genuinely interested. There are companies that get tax breaks for Research Development creating new technologies for a pacemaker or Something Like that. And they want a tax break for making that better for research and development. That might seem like a waste of , but for thatelse lawmaker, it is important. It is genuine. But obviously, everybody has their own people talking about what they want and what they need. As for when we want to see test reform, we will deftly not see this year. It will not happen. House republicans allowed dave camp to introduce his tax bill, but they told me a lot of House Republicans leaderships have there is no way this is coming to the floor. With president obama still being in office for the next couple years and only having an interest in increasing taxes through test reform, i am very skeptical we will see this before 2016. We might have to wait until there is either new leadership on both committees and in the white house. At this point, the leaders we see in the house ways and means the Senate Finance committee, and is a they are on totally different pages air it it will probably take italy different set of individuals to offer my somewhat they want work on because we do not see that happening right now. Should things change in the senate as far as 2000 10 is concerned . Congress will pass the test reform bill. As far as that going to the white house, i do not see obama signing anything they would pass. Lassroom host rachael bade we continue our conversation on this tax day about taxes. Next up, a roundtable. Joining us, Rebecca Wilkins and William Mcbride of the tax foundation. We will have that conversation. First, an update on cspan radio. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] claimsAssociated Press tanks have been seen today not far from the city. A russian insurgents have seized government buildings in about nine cities across the region. He announced an antiterrorist operation. Russia warned against using force against protein a russian protesters saying moscow would walk out of the conference in Geneva Thursday devoted to the ukrainian crisis. Turning to libya, no word on who kidnapped invested are there today or who might be holding him. Authorities say masked gunmen seized the invest in are intricately, the latest in a wave of kidnappings among general lawlessness among the ,verthrow of the late dictator qaddafi. In boston, the Associated Press says today belongs to the victims and those who tried to help after the Boston Marathon bombings one year ago. It killed three people and injured more than 260. 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I thank you and the people of this great country for your generosity and commitment to our people. You have supported us with your resources. With your leadership in the world community. Importantly, with the precious lives of your soldiers. Find more highlights from 35 years of house coverage on our facebook page. Cspan, created by americas Cable Companies 35 years ago and as a publictoday service for your local cable and satellite provider. Washed in general continues. Host our conversation on this tax day takes a look at the fairness of the tax system. Andguests, Rebecca Wilkins William Mcbride. To both of you, thank you for joining us. One of the reasons we wanted to come on was a question pull posed by gallup. The question is, he said, do you regard the income tax you have to pay this year as fair . Yes, 41 say no. Guest fairness is in the eye of the beholder. It is not well defined. Good true, you have got a survey there that indicates most people do not think it is very fair. I think they are right. Depending on the various definitions of fairness. General principle of fairness is that everyone is treated equally under the law. Our tax code does not do that and has not done that in a long time. 100 years or more. Does note tax itself treat people equally. It taxes income. It taxes people for generating income. It does depend on your income. Guest most people are not upset with the amount of taxes they pay, but theyre upset when ge or mitt romney has a lower tax rate than they have. Our tax system is not very fair in our view because we believe it ought to be more progressive than wealthier people should have to pay higher. If you look at an income test come the wealthy pay the majority heard if you look at the tax system overall. The tax system is almost flat. Everyone pays about the same amount of taxes as they take in their share of the countrys income. The top one percent earns about calmf the countries in the and pay only 24 of the taxes. Those who make more pay more taxes, what you think about that . That is the progressive tax. It has become more progressive than ever. Wrote renowned organization based out of paris looks at tax codes in the developed world. They found a few years ago the u. S. Tax code is the most progressive in the developed world. There are a lot of stories in about people skipping out on taxes. Rich people skipping out. On average, there is a burden on the income tax very skewed to the highend. Were making progress as far as taxing people who make more. Would you agree . The problem is the other taxes folks pay. On the other coast. On the bottom fifth pay 17 of income. The top one percent pay less than three percent of their income. State taxes tend to be very regressive. Aggressiveing a very income tax can you make up for that. Apply it to washington. Here are we . Guest we have gone through a time of a lot of gold up, with dave camps proposal in february. It has not been well received by congress by other party. Either party. Passing more temporary something called the tax extenders list of provisions, this helps is nice, in particular, so i think it is back to normal business. The proposal, one of the reasons our previous guest told us people make a certain type of income when it comes to taxes. That is right. There are so many provisions it is hard to summarize but yes, it does target the rich in many ways. And changes all across the income spectrum. Guest this plan would get rid of a lot of special interest tax breaks. Feeling theeneral tax code is about to be overhauled. Itn you get to the details, will be difficult. Everybody has attacked a champion and everyone will fight for their own particular brick. Two guest joining us to talk about taxation. If you want to ask them questions about the current tax system we have, this is your chance to do so you can make your thoughts known on our twitter page. You can send us an email. A little about your organizations. The center for tax justice. Guest we work to influence cap policy to make the tax system more fair and sustainable. Totainable means it is are fairr what you want and and that it taxes people according to their ability to pay. Founded in 1937, always been nonpartisan, nonprofit organization. We have always advocated for according toicy principles laid out by economist s going back to evan smith. It is on our website. We advocate for simplicity on the tesco, neutrality, transparency, stability of the tesco, and no retroactivity. That means, do not change the law retroactively and change taxes on people for income they earn 20 years ago. Seven brackets as we speak. Some of the efforts consolidate into two. Some things are lost during the process. What about the idea . When it comes to your idea of simplicity, buying a bunch of ax brackets are the benefits . Guest it is meaningless. What is compensated about the tesco are all the special rules and provisions and credits. We think there ought to be steeper productivity for the code. Right now, someone making 350,000 pays the same tax rate as someone making 350 million. We think there are there is a lot of room for tax brackets. Guest it is a clear measure of there has been improvement in that the guard. Would be ao brackets further simplification. But youre right that we have software now and most people use turbotax and Something Like that. That is not the biggest sort source of complexity. Biggest source is the stuff is mrs. Have to put up with current that is arcane stuff like how many right off for your investments. Over other complexity for individuals, the credits they received, the earned income tax very little understanding of that by the recipients. Fraud in that of program as a result. Qwest should it be maintained yaks . Guest should it be maintained . Guest no. There is 11 billion a year due to improper payments. You make changes to it as far as businesses and how they are tax . The complexity there is many fold. Labor cost in businesses, they write is off immediately. Expenses,investment equipment, machines, computers, must be written off in years and decades. This is complex. I do not really think the fraud is driven by complexity. There is fraud in all levels of the tesco. Tax is costingre the u. S. Treasury about 150 billion a year. People cheating on the eits the, they know their cheating. Just like those filing false returns in getting millions of dollars in refunds. The problem is the reinforcement from the irs to combat that people areake sure only taking the credits they are entitled to. You keep cutting the irss budget while giving them more and more to do. It will unfortunately suffer. Lets go to a call. Republican line, go ahead. Caller thank you. Do they tax all rich people the same . You failed to mention Warren Buffett. Clinton andsident his wife hillary. These are very wealthy people. You only mentioned mitt romney. There are a lot of wealthy people. Do they all get taxed the same . They do not. You are working, you get a much higher rate. I is mitt romney because it was a recent example that was wellpublicized. Warren buffett pays the same rate as mitt romney. President obama pays a much higher rate because much of his income is earned income, like salary royalties instead of investment like dividends and Capital Gains. It does not matter how much you may, whether 20,000 or 100 million. If your income is from work, you will pay twice as much in contact many would for investment. Guest on twitter, it was just asked that it is dividends and gains. Guest i would agree the whole tesco needs a serious overhaul. Tax dividends have been the case since thel gains beginning of the tesco 100 years ago. That is the case in most countries, that there is a lower rate on the sources of income. There already tax once before on orbit income tax. Whatever is left after that tax is distributed in shareholders. Most companies have been reducing the Corporate Income tax era that is the source of a lot of jobs. And the source of a lot of investment. The u. S. Has not performed the Corporate Tax code incorporations. Were left with the highest tax rate in the developed world. 60 left over for shareholders. Host what is president obamas thought on changing that . Out hishe president set framework for Corporate Tax reform which proposed bringing to 28 . Down he proposed Corporate Tax reform be revenue neutral so it does not raise revenue. In order to bring the rate down, you need significant changes. A system butg to even slowing down and having businesses write out their investments over longer years. I would like to address the corporate paying tax first. Since this is a test justice on a tax policy recently published a report where they looked at the fortune 500 for five years, 20082012, among that the companies consistently profitable over the five years, the average Corporate Income tax rate they paid was 19. 4 . Of 35 . R half the rate there were 11 companies in that group that did not pay any tax in that one year. 26 of those corporations did not pay any income tax in any of those five years. Earned 170, they billion. Also, corporate stock, a lot of endowment funds, pension plans, and a lot of it is not being taxed at the corporate level at all. The double taxation argument does not really apply in a lot of instances. That is one measure of rates. You can look to economists for other measures. Economist at oxford university. Every year, they publish a comparison of Corporate Tax rate across the developed world. The u. S. Comes up with the highest Corporate Tax rate. After japan. Statutorythe highest Corporate Tax rate. The u. S. Overtook them when japan reduced their rate. Rateok at effective studies and we have the highest tax rate on average in the developed world. Variation across countries and effective issue is they are more or less profitable. You do not pay taxes and we have no office. Half the countries have no problems in one year. The study rebekah is referring to was done in a very atypical time. Losses written off over many years. You have to look at the economic studies. Caller good morning. Tax system issive not much more than this. We can think about it. Corporations and business do not pay taxes. The progressives, they will take money from the rich and give it to the poor. You take money from the rich and tax the oil companies. Corporation and mine go up. When you Start Talking about all this progressivism is great, maybe you ought to think about what socialism does across the ocean and tell people the truth about these taxes. There is not much evidence that taxes influence rises. Companies compete based on prices in the market. Corporate income taxes are actually borne by shareholders. The people that own stock in the wealthy. Re very Research Papers show about half of americans do not own any stock at all even in their retirement plans. When we think about competition between companies, we think about it as a good and because a bettercompetition is service at a lower price. Think about competition. What does it mean . Tax rates go down and down and the country with the lowest tax rate has the worst load, the worst military, the least amount of health care, the worst Public Services. Is that the kind of country we want to live in . If you want to live in a low country, you should move to small yet. Other examples of local local tax competent countries , the u. K. Has a Corporate Tax a tax rate now. This is the average Corporate Tax rate in the developed world. It is 25 , compared to 40 in is the. Very this developed world. They have health care. By many measures, the Health Care Work better than ours. They have plenty of tax revenue. They get their tax revenue from other sources. We do not have to rely so taxes. On income the Corporate Income tax is selfdefeating at a high rate. The corporation found ways allowed around it. Corporations are everyday, almost every day or every week, there are headlines of a reparations leaving the u. S. Just yesterday, walgreens was in the headlines for considering a move to switzerland. It is for tax purposes. The problem is not just that it causes a loss of tax revenue in is, it moves that some jobs and over time, it moves the whole company. You can destroy a company through taxation. That we willies mention, switzerland, ireland, they do well because they are parasites on the rest of the world. Rates and tax artificial shifting of tax rates and they propose tax rates i a lot of money. European countries that have a lower tax rate than we do, as an average, also have very stiff value added taxes. In france, the value added taxes now are 20 . Every time you make a purchase, you pay an additional 20 in taxes. Us going i cannot see to consumption tax area we have to figure out where we can tax. If the a study is published every year that shows where countries are and how much they collect in taxes as a percentage of your product. The u. S. Is 33rd out of 35. Fewer taxescollects as a percentage of their economy than the u. S. Does. John, you are on with our guest, our independent line. Caller the problem in the United States is that the filthy rich bloodsuckers on the high politicall offices in the states and in the nation. Rich,ield for the filthy mr. Mcbride, is just giving you the same old worked over complete ohlone. The cure for u. S. Economic problems is to tax the rich. They are getting away with murder. Amen. We do tax the rich. The average rate is 25 . It is actually more than double the average income tax rate across taxpayers. The oecd and other organizations have already a very progressive tax system, the most progressive in the developed world. We are shifting most of the tax or an to the highend. The top one percent pays a greater shares than the bottom of the 90 combined. It has been increasing through every administration over the we continue to make the federal income tax code more and more progressive. So i think, like the corporate out ontax, we are maxed taxing the rich through the federal income tax. It is selfdefeating. The rich find ways around it. It does not raise enough revenue. We have many problems with deficits resulting. Tax evasion, avoidance, tax planning. Say the rich find ways around a bit it goes to her point that even if you pay a top rate of 25 chances are you are not paying the actual rate of 25 or so. ,uest the actual rate is 39. 6 so they bring it down through various ways. They can move their money around. That is the problem with an income tax, particularly one with high rates. They find ways around it. Guest i have to agree with a call on several points the real problem with tax reform not being done is the way campaigns are funded. One of my favorite bloggers last year said members of congress ought to wear a nascar uniform every day with a logo of corporate sponsors who support them on their uniforms. Wealthy and corporations have a lot of influence in congress. They have a lot of power. They spent a lot of Money Library lobbying and they get the tax rules they want and they also can afford very high price tax lawyers to do planning to help them get around the rules. Making the tax code simpler would actually help a lot not in terms of rate but in terms of rules, because when you have a special rule for a certain type of income or taxpayer, then people try to manipulate their transactions to fit within the special rules so they can get that low rate. While we look at averages, and sometimes they tell us something meaningful, a lot of times they dont. The average tax rate for the wealthy might be 25 but we know a lot of people are paying much less than that. There have been wellpublicized cases. Host reggie from norristown, pennsylvania. Democrats line. Caller can you hear me . Host yes, go ahead. Caller a couple of questions. You put up a graph on the state taxes on the last segment and you said pennsylvania was three percent. There is also a county tax of 2. 1 you pay on top of that. I dont think that is fair. A surrounding county two miles east of me that pays no tax and that is a rich area. I live in a bluecollar area and we have to pay an additional tax on top of the state tax, and another county nextdoor timmy pays no taxes on the county tax. And another question. Overseas taxes and products. That companies that go overseas and make their products overseas or sell their products overseas do not pay taxes. From 1969other saying the irs, tax from companies outside the u. S. Of citizens. What happened between 1969 and today and how, we did not enforce that rule for people trying to evade taxes by going overseas . Host lets talk about the state income tax. We think about the total federal level but you have to think about state the local tax and how they contribute to the overall tax responsibility. Mr. Mick arrived. Guest we told what the taxes and their are states that the local income taxes. That is a whole layer of complexity that is unnecessary, that the caller is right about. It is very difficult to figure out these multiple layers of income taxes. Whether some are written off against others, etc. Base of income, the different definitions of income, it is very, very complex. Itsincome tax is, by nature, very, very complex. It really shouldnt be at the local level. It is an absurd layer of complexity. Guest i do agree with that. It is unfortunate how our tax system has developed and that there are so many different jurisdictions that impose tax. But the states that do impose an income tax tend to have much more fair systems. The states that rely instead on sales tax or property tax or tend to taxof taxes low income people at a much higher rate than they tax high income people. So the income tax is a way to make up for that. Host good morning. Joining us from massachusetts on our independent line. Go ahead, please. Caller good morning. Like most viewers, i am totally before to buy all of these percentages and statistics being thrown around. I suspect it is deliberate. It sort of reminds me there are lies, damn lies and then statistics. Felt they percent were tax fairly 51 feel they are tech daily. If half of them are not paying tax at all should they even be counted as far as the survey is concerned . Dont i dont know why we have a flat tax with no exemptions, no deductions, and let the chips fall where they may. Thank you. Host ms. Wilkins . Guest the problem with the flat tax is it makes the flat tax system even more regressive. As i talked about earlier, state tax systems tend to be very regressive and if the federal tax code was not progress in, you would have lower income people paying a much higher percentage of their income in taxes. Focus on the federal income tax because for most of us, that is the biggest amount of tax that we pay. But low income people know a different story. A low income single mom goes to the store to buy her kids School Supplies and she has a 20 bill in her pocket. She knows she cant put 20 worth of stuff in her cart because she knows when she gets to the checkout stand there will 12 tax so10 , 11 , onlys careful to pay by 18 worth of stuff. We cannot just focus on the income tax because all americans pay taxes. It is impossible to live in america without paying any tax. You might not pay any income tax but you pay a lot of other taxes that everybody contributes. That is how it should be. Host the notion of a fair tax . Guest a flat tax it makes a lot of sense. It has been proposed by economists going back to the 1970s. The idea is basically to get a way of tracking of peoples defined,s it has been particularly the taxing of their Investment Income. So the big difference is, you tax wages, which are relatively easy to track and hard to escape taxation on wages, and then you dont tax what people do with those wages after that. You dont tax and additionally if they choose to write to buy groceries. You do not tax additionally if they choose to buy shares in a company. The current income tax double he taxes returns on those shares. That is the fundamental source of the double taxation of the income tax. Host what it the layered on by a sales tax . Guest a sales tax in addition to a flat tax would double he tax consumption so you have to do one or the other. A flat tax or a sales tax. Host if you put a flat tax at the federal level on top of the sales and use taxes we already have at the state it would be very, very regressive. Idea of fairness in the Washington Post talks about the marriage penalty. I married people treated differently tax wise than single and is it fair . Guest another feature of the income tax system. We have four if it filing options depending on your marital status. Four different filing options. That is three too many. Should be one. We have all sorts of special provisions depending on how many children you have an depending on your marital status. It is very complex and unnecessary. Guest there is a marriage penalty if both spouses work that if only one spouse works there is a bonus because you basically get to use your spouses tax bracket. Does trade working couples definitely than it treats people that have one spouse staying at home. Host washington, d. C. Go ahead. Democrats line. Myler thank you for taking call. I had a comment for both people. For the gentlemen, when you are talking about the effective tax keep theneed to discussion on us. She was talking about effective tax rate that Companies Pay and your response was talking about the effective tax rate compared to other nations. For the lady, when you are talking about a flat tax, what in thence does it make percentages . You are not paying a larger percent of you and, to make more ,oney if the flat tax is 10 it is 10 of 100 Million Dollars or 10,000. You are paying the same percentage. In terms of having the sales tax with a flat tax, if i am buying groceries for 20 or buy groceries for whole foods for 1000, the six percent sales tax is the same amount so it is not really regressive. It is regressive because of low income people have to spend more of their income. Spend more sales tax as a percentage of their income. You know if he ever lived paycheck to paycheck which most of us have that one time of our spent all of our paycheck on things we need like groceries, clothing, gas, etc. But high income people only spend a fraction of their incomes. You pair a flat tax with a sales tax it will be very aggressive regressive. Guest i would agree with that. You dont need to bank taxes on consumption, two taxes on consumption. But going to a that tax will be an improvement in taking off layers of double taxation on investment, particularly corporate investment. We double he tax corporations y tax. D will or triple the additional layer, the third layer, is the Corporate Income tax which, again, is set very high and the u. S. This thatcher tory corporate rate is the highest in the developed world. There was a question about the effective rate. Many studies were done by academics at places Like Oxford University of calgary, university of North Carolina and they found the u. S. Has one of the highest effect of corporate rate in the developed world and that is in the mid20s. Ok . Mid20s. That is down from the statutory Corporate Tax rate of about 40 , just like the individual side of things. People do bring their defect if ratesdown effective down. Host we have two guest talking about tax issues. You were just hearing from William Mcbride, the tax foundation, and you were also hearing from Rebecca Wilkins, citizens for tax justice, their senior counsel. Joe from new york, independent line. Caller good morning. And you hear me . I would just like to tell bill and rebekah there is a basic principle that says the consumer ultimately pays all taxes. Talking about not the consumer. In new york state among we worked beyond the fourth of july to get our independence pat taxes. About 60 of our that includes the jurisdictions of federal, state, and local. It includes the county. The school district. The city. And other special districts. That covers the income tax system, a property tax system, a sales tax system. All of new york state. I think you people, both of you, have not mentioned that the consumer ultimately pays all taxes. And your example of the mother going down and buying milk and paying a sales tax of . 10 or whatever you said it was that is only part of it because the store pays property taxes and the owner of the distribution products, the tracking system, they pay taxes. That is in the price of the milk before you put taxes on taxes. Host let me later on his call, a thought from ron on twitter saying all americans should take for the share of government services, even state and municipal. Guest think about what our taxes by. We want a strong military. We want police and fire protection. We want good roads. We want a good Education System and we want a Good Public Health system. Theres a lot of things we want government to do, and those things cost money. The issue is, should all of us contribute to that . Of course, most of us think all of us should. While we can talk about averages, the problem that makes people upset and makes people think the system is not fair is that they see wellpublicized cases like ge or Warren Buffett who pay a different rate than the rest of us pay. That really rankles those people. It is amazing to me that the corporations especially, you know, when they decide where to locate, they want to be somewhere that has good infrastructure, roads that can move their products, an airport close by. They want an educated work force. I want a nice place for their employees to live. Yet so many of them dont think they have any obligation to help pay for those things. Get all thosehey things and places like canada, u. K. , ireland, switzerland, and lots of european countries. And all of those countries, they pay a lower Corporate Tax rate than they do in the u. S. Both in terms of the statutory corporate great and the effective Corporate Tax rate at the end of the day. So we have a Corporate Tax system that is too punitive and pushing companies outside the u. S. We have fewer corporations in the u. S. Now than we have had at any time since the 1970s. A are finding ways outside of the Corporate Tax regime and moving to the individual code. Most businesses in the u. S. File under the individual code. That can change because taxes on that side have been raised. It is a very punitive system or business production of income. Host a viewer says on twitter hell us about the decline of real wages in the middle class and the texas compound the problem . Guest definitely taxes compound the problem. The preview caller mentioned this. The tax freedom day report that just came out. We do total out all the taxes and we do it by state. We count the local income taxes and the property taxes. In taxy do result freedom days going into april, may, and june in some cases. There are a lot of taxes out there. The biggest one is the federal income tax by far. Guest the federal income tax of the biggest for a lot of people but for a lot of people it is not the biggest one. They have to contend with all the other taxes as well. When we compare the u. S. System with the countries in europe, we have to remember that all of those countries depend on a very consumption tax. I just dont see that happening here. Host in our last segment we something called tax extenders. Talk about what they are and what they do on the budget and your perspective on this process we are seeing on capitol hill. Ms. Wilkins . Guest there is the biggest budget buster you never heard of, tax extenders are 55 provisions of the tax code that would just temporary when they were and acted and every year or so they extend those for another year or two. Collectively they cost about 50 billion a year. The 10year estimate for those is 700 billion dollars. They are huge. Most of them benefit businesses. Two of them especially benefit profitses who shift overseas. They should not be extended. If we think they are good tax policy they ought to be made permanent and they ought to be paid for. If they are not good tax policy, the expire at the end of december, we should let them die. Guest i agree with almost all of that. Bere is they should not temporary. No aspect of the tax code or the laws should be temporary. We should determine which are the useful provisions, the ones that are beneficial in terms of generally agreedupon terms. Investment, economic growth, hiring, etc. , etc. Attempted, anden they are having hearings right now in both the house and senate to determine the merit of these different provisions, so we will see what shakes out. But some of them are very important, particularly bonus depreciation expensing investment for business rather than the complicated process of writing off for decades. There are other provisions that benefit is missed. Active financing is a very arcane sounding thing. Compete the banks abroad, puts them on a level Playing Field with other banks operating abroad. So these are temporary provisions that matter a lot for businesses. Host should they be incorporated in the tax code altogether rather than piecemeal extending it . Guest there is disagreement about them, which is why they are always passed piecemeal. We need to come to some sort of agreement as to which meet merit and which dont and pass those which have merit on a permanent basis. Host what about merit for some of these extenders . Guest there might be a few that all to be made permanent but we think they would be very few. Art of the problem is congress is trying to influence behavior through the tax code and it is not a very efficient or effective way to do that. And a lot of cases, a Spending Program would be a lot more efficient and effective meeting the goal they want to meet. The most egregious part of this whole process right now is that the Senate Finance Committee Just reported the extenders bill out of Committee Without any pay for, so there is no revenue offset. On the other hand, they cant pass the Unemployment Insurance extension because they cant find a way to pay for it. But they are willing to extend 50 billion a year in primarily Corporate Tax breaks without any revenue. Harbor,thony from palm florida. Democrats line. Caller first, i want to thank rebecca can you hear me . Host if you are listening to your television, speak on the phone. Caller it is on need. Justice is onex of my go to websites. You give great information and i appreciate you on the show today. Great facts. I think if you listen to the gentleman, i just think that you keep talking about this burden on corporations and this tax burden and the high tax. Corporations dont pay this high tax. Very few of them pay the 35 , if any. 2008ffective tax rate in on average i understand for fortune 500 companies was 4. 7 , last year, 12. 7 . Your listeners need to understand that you can throw 35 up there and put a spotlight on it but no one is paying that. I just want to thank citizens for tax justice for doing the right thing and educating theyone about the fact that working poor and the middle class our work paying more as a percentage of income than the wealthy. Guest those are wrong numbers. The effective Corporate Tax rate that you cited four percent or 12 , those are flat wrong. Again, i will refer you to Academic Studies on this published every year, they compare the u. S. To other countries. The u. S. Generally has a corporate effective tax rate of about 25 . Year after that way year. It has gone down recently because of the massive financial crisis and the massive losses that occurred over the last five years, causing writeoffs going forward. 20s bys still in the every reasonable measure according to irs data and data that is the bureau of Economic Analysis data, according to Financial Statement data looking at individual corporations as a citizens were tax justice does. What citizens for tax justice is emphasizing that the variation and a looking at some companies yes, and some years they dont pay any income tax. A lot of those companies are not paying Corporate Income tax because they do not have profited that year and they are not legally supposed to pay taxes on nonprofits. It is a profit tax. A lot of other issues with their analysis. I would refer you to the Academic Studies that do this in a more holistic way using various data sets to find a corporate effective rate of about 20 five percent. Guest our Corporate Tax study excludes companies that have losses because we know they dont pay tax rate would look about fortune 500 and we included only Companies Often will all five years of the study and we found a lot were not paying tax. While we have been going through recessions, we have been doing and thedy since 1984 corporate effective tax rate has never been much over half of the statutory rate. The problem is the outliers. Retailers, for example, are paying pretty close to the 35 rate while hightech is playing paying in the single digits. Utilities are paying negative tax rate and transportation to paying higher. Because of the special tax breaks in the code. Because the way the rules are written where some types of income is taxed differently and some types of businesses get bigger deductions, there are credits that in effect certain types of activity, all the competitions in the tax code. Guest i would refer you to irs data it is on their website, easily accessible. You can look at the total number,and the average and it will not show you returned by return data. You have to get Financial Statements from companies to look at that. Here have been studies and they say using Financial Statements on average operations pay 25 . Some companies do not pay that every year in and year out. Some pay way more than 35 . So there is massive variation. There is the profit issue. Inre were massive losses 2000 7, 2008, 2009 and they wrote those offer years and years and continue to write them off in some cases. There is the foreign profit issue. This is not counting taxes on foreign profits abroad. Is are many studies out there doing this in a very open and transparent way and i refer you to the Academic Studies. Host lets go to peter in st. Petersburg, florida, on the republican line. Caller thank you for taking my call. I am really enjoying the program. You guys are definitely covering a lot of things that have been really bothering me lately. I have been reading articles on the white house. An old article, increasing taxes on the middle Class Consumer spending. Also on cnn that got an article called how america is rigged for the rich. I think a caller from new york hit on a lot of these topics. Benefit america if the taxes for the rich and how how doesso sheltered, our government to believe that lowering their taxes so they can keep reinvesting in the economy and that is the way our economy is setting up right now however, i dont see any benefit . I just see me and my family, our taxes is going up and our income is going down, on everything. Guest that is really the problem with our current system, is that the rules are so complicated and there are so many special tax breaks for different types of income and different types of taxpayers that a lot of wealthy people and a lot of big corporations are able to really aggressively lower their tax bill, maybe not a terribly legally, and pay lower rates than a lot of middle or low income people are paying. I think that is why people dont think the taxes them is fair, they are right. Guest the tax system is not fair. People are right about that. Effective rates for corporations are very high, though, as i said, 25 on average. And on average for individuals it is about 10 . One caller mentioned another of the, about 50 population does not pay the federal income tax, the personal income tax. So it is very skewed to the high the with the rich paying vast majority of it. The top 10 pay about 70 of the federal income taxes. Skewed, and ivery think this creates a lot of complexity. That is one source of the complexity. We need to get to a flatter system where everyone is treated equally. The out the complexity of deductions, the various special treatment features, for sure, but the income tax is inherently complex. We need to get away from an income tax. Host do you think we will ever see a major change change to the tax code as we know it . Guest are to predict. Hundred years. It started out as a tax on the one percent. It was a very small tax. It did not raise a lot of revenue. Since then, it has become the major dominant source of revenue for the federal government. And it has become more and more progressive and shifted the burden more and more to the high end and a source of major redistribution in the federal code. Guest the income set tax, the highest source of revenue and the individual income tax and payroll taxes make up 82 of the federal governments revenue. Corporations only contribute 12 in the most recent years we had numbers for. Work fork people that a living have every right to be upset. Host on this tax day, joined by two people who follow the issue closely. You heard from Rebecca Wilkins, citizens for tax justice and you also heard from William Mcbride from the tax foundation. Thank you for the conversation. It is the oneyear anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. The Vice President and dr. Joe toen heading today ceremonies. Your thoughts on the year anniversary, for the next half hour. Here is how you can call host we will take those questions and take a look at the papers as well. But first, an update from cspan radio. Eastern time. Natos secretarygeneral rasmussen said the usled alliance and the European Union must cooperate more in the military realm. Speaking today in luxembourg to the eu defense ministers, the secretarys remarks focusing on what nato was doing to counteract what western countries say is a Russian Campaign of pressure and intimidation against ukraine. Meanwhile, prorussian insurgents in Eastern Ukraine are erect and fresh barricades around government buildings that they have seized. Economy,o the u. S. Todays report on Consumer Prices find a lower gasoline prices cap consumer inflation in check last month in the helping offset higher costs for food and clothing. The Labor Department says the Consumer Price index rose 0. 2 in march after just 0. 1 increases the previous two months. Races have risen just 1. 5 year over year. That remains well below the Federal Reserve two percent target for inflation. This tax day, reports that the Social Security administration will immediately cease efforts to collect on taxpayer debt to the government that are more than 10 years old. He action comes after the Washington Post reported the government was seizing state and federal tax refunds that were on their way to about 400,000 americans who had relatives who owed money to the Social Security agency. In many cases, the people whose refunds were intercepted have never heard of any debt and the far back as the middle of the past century. Those are some of the latest headlines on cspan radio. Click there is an old saying that there is an old saying that victory has 100 fathers and defeat is an orphan. I would not be surprised if information is with regard to the recent activities. Factst talking about the that interrogation last week, senator goldwater asked questions about the use of a carrier aircraft from the carrier essex with the markings painted out. We figured someone over there told them about that thing wednesday morning. Maybe goldwater is going to squaring it and they will bring it in such a way that there was u. S. Air cover and you were wrong and i was wrong in saying there wasnt. Audio from the aftermath of the u. S. Backed attempt to overthrow feudal castro historic audio. Online at www. Cspan. Org and nationwide on Xm Satellite Radio channel 120. For over 35 years, cspan brings Public Affairs even from washington directly to you, putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings and conferences, and offering complete gaveltogavel coverage of the u. S. House. Of as a Public Service private industry. We are cspan, created by the cable tv industry 35 years ago and brought as a Public Service. Like us on facebook and follow us on twitter. Washington journal continues. Host on this First Anniversary of the bombings at the Boston Marathon the boston globe highlights several stories related to it. Not only taking a look at some people affected directly by it about the headline a year since attacks, many wounded still struggle. Saying burn skin has been grown and survivors who lost legs are walking on prosthetic limbs but what remains for many other relentless injuries nobody sees host it goes on highlighting and shows some of the pictures of people directly affected by the situation that occurred last year at this time. On this year anniversary, i want to get your thoughts on the Boston Marathon bombing, not only as far as what happened since the year but issues concerning safety and things along that nature. Here is how you can give us a call host it was the watertown chief who testified last week in front of the Homeland Security committee. Was asked a few things local Police Department brought to the table along with the joint Terrorism Task force after events that occurred. [video clip] i do believe so. Watertown, 65,000 65 man department. Eliteown represents most performance around the country. We have limited resources. It doesnt make sense for us to on asomebody at the jttf fulltime basis. But when Something Like this happens in my community or any community are crossed the country, we need to have access to the table and be brought into it and be updated and play a role. I think some of the recommendations you are making in your report touch on that. We needed to have a seat right away. There were opticals we had to do before we could. I think there can be improvement and your committee is helping make it happen. I appreciate it. , at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev picture of the suspect. The New York Times saying host if you go back to the New York Times story there is a picture of the outside of the facility where he is currently being held. Again, at this anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, your thoughts on it for the next 30 minutes or so. 5853881 for republicans host tonight at 8 00 p. M. On cspan you can hear two journalists who covered this extensively at the Boston Marathon. Thoughts, geteir their experiences, taking a look at it. You can see it tonight on cspan. That event will start at 8 00. Our first call is from donnie from georgia on our democrats line. All her co my comment is, i think we have to continue to live and to work and play and do the things we do despite terrorism. I remember that they last year. I just want to say my thoughts and prayers are with those who , those who were injured. We have to continue to keep pushing forward and continue to live. Host what do you think about the federal role as far as not only the way it played out last year or the continued presence of federal investigations like bees and looking at issues like these . Caller thats a good question. I think just like after 9 11, a lot of things took place and a lot of changes. I think we have a reactionary society and we have to stop being so reactionary and being proactive and get out in front of events that happened. That is the way we handle these investigations. From again, thoughts georgia, calling on our democrats line commenting on the First Anniversary of the marathon bombings. Today takes a look at what is going on inside of the city. Highlighting a common phrase you probably heard leading out of last year im a boston strong. More than a slogan but some leading the resilience and accomplishments host again, some of the thoughts from usa today. Andrew from virginia beach. Hello. In today to calling comment that i think the entire notion, the idea of is atrsaries on bombings best insane and at worst are bubbling nonproductive. That i canthings think to memorialize or to have an anniversary for, a bombing or a slaughter is very, very low on the list and should not even be on the list. I think the attention we give is counterproductive. Host how so . Do you bring up the anniversary when you first remember your wisdom teeth being pulled out or when you first remember the pain of having something happen to you, an automobile accident, or some other catastrophe you had in your life . Do you have an anniversary celebration for that . Host what is the correlation . What is the correlation between those events of what happened last year . You are memorializing or bringing to mind and giving value to something that should not have value. It was a catastrophe. You can take a different stance, suppose, and if you wanted to do something of a memorial, if you were a vindictive person you could bomb the people who you could claim were the cause of the incident. That would be just as ridiculous. But bringing it up and , it is justg it wallowing in emotional despair. Host andrew from virginia beach. Jason from indiana. Democrats line. Caller how are you doing . I wanted to send prayers and remembrance to the victims and the family and friends of the boston bombing. That is pretty much all he wanted to say. I am glad we remember these people. They need the love and support. W aeff bauman, a double amputee, a picture of him. Along with his pregnant wife. Saying i am not angry. I dont think about it at all, he says, about the brothers who calls the attack. But i will definitely Pay Attention to the trial. I want to see justice served. Host here is henry from chicago, illinois. Republican line. Maller my comment is, freedon costs. There is a big price americans have to pay for the freedom that we have. And part of the sacrifice is that people will buy and people will be hurt. Anddom, and it costs, americans have to understand that we have a big price to pay. Host mario is next from bridgeport, connecticut. Democrats line. The elements of the fbi war on terror, profiling and entrapment. Utilizing middle east and informants, the feds target muslims and they can and filtrate religious and meanings meetings. In the case of the Boston Marathon, whether domestic or international terrorism, the middle man, informant, was taken out of the picture. The goal was accomplished. Perhaps now the fbi will think twice before profiling and instigating acts of terrorism. Andmedia whitewash xenophobia having citizens blaming militia, illegal aliens and the usual suspects, al qaeda, and even obama for the terrible a cowardly act that occurred april 15, 2013. Im wondering why they never showed an american militia member out in a sting. Host clarence from colorado. Independent line. Caller i am responding to you asking the young man to give a correlation. These are the correlations. ,artin luther king, junior people want us to forget what was suffered in this country by ts and the racist people but we need to remember 9 11. A want us to forget the native americans how they were slaughtered in the buffalo, but dont forget 9 11. They want us to forget the bombing of nagasaki and japan when honolulu was untouched. This is the correlation. I am a defender of the u. S. Constitution as all veterans and servicemembers are. They are not defenders of the country. And they have committed treason. They are not defenders of the president or the governors. They are defenders of the u. S. Constitution. Host the Associated Press reporting the president will observe the anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombing with a moment of silence at the white house. He plans to make remembrance privately today host the Vice President and his wife jill will attend a Memorial Service in boston. The Vice President s office says he will deliver remarks in tribute to victims of the bombing as well as survivors and first responders. There is built from florida. Democrats line. Bill from florida. Hello . To warni just will like the people going through all these stressful times to watch some of these things doctors give them for their nerves. Some of the repercussions, some of the reactions people can have to these chemicals can be quite a liberating. Debilitating. A living here in central florida, i have seen quite a bit of it. Host amy from michigan. Republican line. Caller hello. I think the problems lie with our cities. People are stepping on top of to live in a that, when there is so much space. I went up north the other day we went forigan, miles and miles and miles with just trees and nature. There is just so much space in this world. People insist on living in those congested, and they are just. Sking for congestion problems host that is amy from midland, michigan. This is tom from new york. Hello. Caller how are you . I am responding to the caller from connecticut who says we are picking on a certain group. I dont think so. You got to look out for everybody because america, everybody is trying to get at america. That is the price you have to pay when you are the leader of the world, and you got to be careful and you got to watch out. Thats all. Host if you go online and you want to read some of the findings in the issue. Inspector general, intelligence community, cia, Justice Department and department of Homeland Security put out an unclassified summary in terms of how the information was handled and shared on the bombings that took place before the bombings that took place. A hearing last week dealt with some of the findings and issues related to it. It was the former Boston Police commissioner ed davis who testified in front of the Homeland Security committee. He talked about the recommendations made by the committee and also talked about agencies on the local and federal level and how well they work together. Heres what he had to say. [video clip] acting director me did a diminished job is done and said all the right things. Appearsversation it as so we moved in the right direction. The recommendations this committee have come up with is exactly the way we should be dealt going to make it a more comprehensive system. If those recommendations are not put in a federal code somewhere, it is just that, recommendations. If congress in its wisdom sees these things as good things, then it should be codified so the system has to operate that way. Police agencies at every level follow the law. And if that is the law, that is what they will do. So that rubber band snapping back that we talked about a little earlier, it makes it impossible to do that. The other thing i want to mention is, this is a story of numbers. 20,000e are less than ottawa agents, fbi agents, working on the issue of terrorism and there are 600,000 local police officer, we are a force multiplier. That has to be a recognition on the part of all agencies that if we are going to have a comprehensive i had the ability to work in the u k and other Police Agencies and other countries where there is a system from top to bottom. That really should be our model, so everyone is working together and everybody recognizes this , it basically is everybodys responsibility. Host by the way, for the whole hearing go to our website www. Cspan. Org, and you can listen to the whole hearing and things said. Connecticut. Democrats line. Dave. Hello. You are on. Caller i wanted to make a comment concerning the gentleman who spoke about that we should not memorialize this. Ishink what he fail to see that it is not about memorializing the tragedy but the triumph of those people who survived and the resiliency of the human spirit. That is what i want to remember. Also, we need to use times like this to reflect on the human condition and to see that there are people who are willing to do these kind of things and commit these kind of crimes. And we have to get to the bottom of why. We have to be concerned. I just wanted to make that comment. Thank you. London. Ve from new this is eddie, who is from North Carolina. Independent line. Caller hello there. I find it interesting that folks dont bother to look behind the political agendas sometimes. On youtube, there are a lot of things if you type in the word boston bombing and false flag why doesnt the junk pop up . I am curious. The bostonrning marathon, the photographers who covered it for the new york won a pulitzer. One won, and then is one of his photographs. And the author of the eternal and at slavery and war the heart of his book is the war of 1812 were thousands of slaves sought liberty by escaping to the british side, in what mr. Taylor, a professor at the university of virginia, cause an incredible at the resourcefulness and courage. He was profiled and interviewed about his writings or at least an event was taken in from our onktv unit, which is cspan2 the weekend. You can see the interview and the thoughts from alan taylor, Pulitzer Prize winter winner. Nancy from massachusetts. Democrats line. Color how caller how are you. I am calling because i grew up right there in boston, so it was very close to home. Comments i would like to say is i think they did a terrific job. It was the first time anything of that nature, that extreme nature having to do with we hadng that was just never seen anything like that here. Its. Ork has experienced a much bigger city. So i think that we need to support them as they grow and develop those skills. Tolso think that it is ok not have a memorial. And youou were there lost a son or you witnessed the madness of what occurred, you really have to respect what every individual wants. Those are the two comments i would say. Host james joining us from New Hampshire on our independent line. Caller good morning, pedro. It was a sad day in boston. Our heart goes out to the families. But i want to look e. On all of this beyond all of this. 9 11 and all these things that happen. The fbi was watching these people. The state of massachusetts paid for these people to be in our lovely country. I am not condoning it. Just saying, these people were not being watched. We were given fair notice from the russians to keep eye on the folks and they were not being watched curtail the. Down theg has come line with the American People since 9 11, a lot of our liberties have been lost. And now what happened with the boston bombings, more of our liberties. If you wonder what else is going on behind the scenes. Once again, as much as you think our government is this and that, it is not, folks. We have a cia and we have all it stuff going on with nsa, goes on and on, drones. What is the real picture . That control all world events. Right give you the three now. Common knowledge that you can go on the computer and find all of this out. Youve got the vatican, great written, and washington. Great britain and washington. Host the federal response to the shooting at the Jewish Community center, highlighted in the washington times. Prosecutors will file hate crime charges against a former ku klux klan leader who gunned down three people outside of the Jewish Community center and a complex. T the president took time to make reference to it. [video clip] a government we will provide whatever assistance we need to support the investigation. As americans, we not only need to open our hearts to families of victims but we need to stand united against this kind of terrible violence which has no place in our society. And we have to keep coming to combatcross faiths the ignorance and intolerance including antisemitism that can lead to hatred and to violence. Because we are all children of god and we are all made in his image and all worthy of his love and dignity, and we see what happens around the world when religiousbased or tinged violence can rear its other ugly head. Its got no place in our society. Host talking about the First Anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings. Dan from North Carolina. Independent line. Caller i really feel for the people in boston. But, you know, you have to that the United States, they ended up leading martial law be taken care of and it is not really a good thing. Under martial law among the president does not change and at the same time of the bombings there, nobody talked about the videos in youtube where there was a bomb in waco at the same time. America really needs to wake up. Host scott in ashland, oregon. Democrats line. Caller good morning. I was watching the bombing on television and was appalled. Say, wait until other countries start getting bombed like we did. Host jill from south plainfield, new jersey. Republican line. Jared . Caller this is girard. Am i on . We have a memorial day for our soldiers who died, or actually veterans day and memorial day to memorialize. And we have 9 11, and that is important. But there is other stuff that peopled, you know, two to people. Maybe like memorial day if we combine all of that. Host gerard joining us from new jersey. We have been talking about the Boston Marathon bombings, the First Anniversary. Highlighted in the papers today. That will be it for our program for the day. Another addition of washington journal comes your way 7 00 tomorrow morning. We will take a look at the papers and interview guests. We will see you then. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] today is tax day across the u. S. , a day when federal taxes are due. And we are going to continue cspans facebook poll started today. The poll question is, is your tax bill too high, too low, or about right . Callsngton journal took on tax day and you contend can continue online, write a comment and vote. Right now too high runs twice as much. Again, offer your reaction at facebook. Com cspan. Forers of congress are away their twoweek easter and passover break but many tweeted out on face book. Covers woman diane black says tax they is a reminder why we need a fairer, flatter simpler tax code. Er essman victor hartzl time for hardworking americans to send more of their money to washington. We need from senator ted cruz abolish the irs and tax they in three words. In fact the author of food politics will leave will lead the discussion on marketing and access to Affordable Health food. Live coverage will begin at 2 30 eastern. At 7 00 eastern the u. S. Supreme court had an oral argument worth argument where they struck down the court ruled those restrictions are unconstitutional. An unconstitutional violation of First Amendment free speech rights. The moment of silence will mark the oneyear anniversary today of the Boston Marathon bombings. Three people were